Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor Review

Title: Dreams of Gods and Monsters
Author: Laini Taylor
Pages: 613
Published: April 8th 2014 by Little, Brown & Company
Source: Ebook Library,
Links: goodreads, lainitaylor.com/

By way of a staggering deception, Karou has taken control of the chimaera rebellion and is intent on steering its course away from dead-end vengeance. The future rests on her, if there can even be a future for the chimaera in war-ravaged Eretz. Common enemy, common cause. When Jael's brutal seraph army trespasses into the human world, the unthinkable becomes essential, and Karou and Akiva must ally their enemy armies against the threat. It is a twisted version of their long-ago dream, and they begin to hope that it might forge a way forward for their people. And, perhaps, for themselves. Toward a new way of living, and maybe even love. But there are bigger threats than Jael in the offing. A vicious queen is hunting Akiva, and, in the skies of Eretz ... something is happening. Massive stains are spreading like bruises from horizon to horizon; the great winged stormhunters are gathering as if summoned, ceaselessly circling, and a deep sense of wrong pervades the world. What power can bruise the sky? From the streets of Rome to the caves of the Kirin and beyond, humans, chimaera and seraphim will fight, strive, love, and die in an epic theater that transcends good and evil, right and wrong, friend and enemy. At the very barriers of space and time, what do gods and monsters dream of? And does anything else matter?

Another series complete. One of my big reading goals this year is to finish all these trilogies I've started so I am glad to get another one down.  I started Dreams of Gods and Monsters last year but am not sure why I ended up putting it down and not finishing it.  So when I restarted reading it recently I just started back at the beginning.   It took me a while to get into it.  It's been a long time since I read the first two books so I had to try to remember what was going on.  The story finally got going though and I was sucked back in.

The author kept the same tone throughout the series.  Never once did I think that the plot was filler.    I even learned a new term for the plot of this book, deus ex machina.  Where gods come in the scene of a tragedy! Yeah for new words. There were a few new characters added in this book.. and though at times it almost got to be too many I enjoyed reading new perspectives that were happening. The only think I really didn't love about the book was the final chapter.  I don't know why but it was boring to me and I found myself scanning the whole thing.  Maybe it was the fact that it was late at night... but I think it's because it went into so much minor detail that I just was over it. 

This series is a great fantasy series. It's the type of book that makes me wish I was the type of person who highlights passages in books so I could write them here for you to enjoy.  But alas... I don't.  I wish I had read all three books together .. I can't stand waiting so long in between series anymore.   I just love how the conclusion of this story is pretty satisfying.   I would recommend this book to everyone looking for high fantasy. 

“It was not a happy ending, but a happy middle—at last, after so many fraught beginnings. Their story would be long. Much would be written of them, some of it in verse, some sung, and some in plain prose, in volumes to be penned for the archives of cities not yet built. Against Karou's express wish, none of it would be dull.”

The end of the book gives us a look into a future that I am hoping Taylor writes more about.  Maybe in a short story, or in a spinoff book??  I can only hope.

5 stars!

My review of the other books in the series:
 
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor